The Alburgh School Board on Monday approved a no-confidence motion in Grand Isle Supervisory Union’s superintendent and another top official, highlighting tensions between the board and its supervisory union.
The no-confidence vote, aimed at superintendent Michael Clark and Nick DeVita, the supervisory union’s director of student support services, was due primarily to complaints over a lack of special education services for Alburgh students, said Michael Savage, the chair of the Alburgh School Board.
In recent months, the five-member Alburgh board has also been mulling the possibility of withdrawing from the umbrella of the Grand Isle Supervisory Union. In an interview, Savage alluded to other, unspecified concerns that, he said, have frayed the relationship between Alburgh and its supervisory union.
“We’re really at wits’ end with this,” Savage said at a Monday board meeting. “And I just don’t — I don’t see how we move forward at this point. There’s no trust.”
One board member was absent for Monday’s vote, which was otherwise unanimous.
The Grand Isle Supervisory Union oversees school districts in Grand Isle County, which includes a peninsula and chain of islands in Vermont’s northernmost reaches of Lake Champlain. Along with Alburgh’s district, the supervisory union also includes the South Hero School District and the Champlain Islands Unified Union School District.
Each member district has its own school board. The Alburgh board oversees the Alburgh Community Education Center, a roughly 200-student pre-K-8 school in the Grand Isle County town.
Member districts receive key services, such as data and financial management, special education and school meals from their supervisory union.
But Savage said in an interview that, over the past few months, some Alburgh students were not receiving special education services and had not even been assigned to special educators. He estimated that “more than 10 families” had been affected.
Board members fear the lack of services may be preventing the school from meeting special education regulations.
“The special educators that we do have on site — you know, our educators, our teachers — basically have been begging for help since February, and just nothing was being done,” Savage said.
But Clark, the supervisory union superintendent, disputed parts of that account.
The Alburgh School District started the year fully staffed, Clark said, but a special educator had to take a leave of absence partway through the year. He noted that a widespread staffing shortage has made it extremely difficult to hire special educators.
“Teachers, interventionists, other special educators, support staff, administrators did the best they could to support students affected by the sudden loss of the special education teacher,” Clark said.
And from his perspective, Clark said, Alburgh’s board has made insufficient effort to address special education shortages: The board has had no recent agenda items dealing with special education, he said, nor have its members brought up the subject at supervisory union board meetings.
“I’m happy to report to the Alburgh board (and) have the conversation,” Clark said.
Alburgh’s board, however, is already discussing leaving the Grand Isle Supervisory Union. Earlier this month, the board hosted a presentation by an attorney to discuss the legal process for withdrawing from a supervisory union.
The district is considering asking voters on Town Meeting Day in March 2024 to weigh in on withdrawal, Savage said.
“We’re looking into that at this time, and that’s going to be studied,” he said. “Basically, we have issues. And we need to find solutions to those issues.”
